UNIT 6: BUSINESS DECISION
MAKING
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WEEK TEN
LECTURER: N. QUARRIE
N. Quarrie
Learning Outcome Two (2)
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 LO3 Be able to produce information in appropriate
formats for decision making in an organisational
context.
N. Quarrie
Objective
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 By the end of this lesson you should be able to:
 3.3 prepare a business presentation using suitable
software and techniques to disseminate information
effectively
 3.4 produce a formal business report
N. Quarrie
Overview
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 Last week’s session focused on how to produce trend
lines, as well as, how to use them to assist in
forecasting for specified business information. This
week we want to speak about preparing a business
presentation and doing a formal business report.
 As you can see we will be covering two Acs in this
lesson.
N. Quarrie
Preparing a business presentation
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 There are a number of software that can be used to
create a business presentation. One of the more
popular ones is Microsoft Office: Powerpoint
presentation.
 For this course/lesson we will assume that we will be
using Microsoft Office: Powerpoint.
N. Quarrie
Preparing a business presentation
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 The preparation of a business presentation is quite different
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from preparing any other presentation.
The sections/format of a business presentation varies based
on what the presentation is about. For the purpose of doing a
business presentation based on research findings within the
context of this course the following sections should be
included in your Microsoft Office: Powerpoint:
Introduction
Objectives-Objectives of the research that was conducted
Limitations faced during the research
Summary of data
Implications of results found
Conclusion
N. Quarrie
Preparing a business presentation
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 Introduction
-State the objectives of the presentation, as well as, mention the
format the presentation will take/topics to be discussed in the
presentation.
-This should be used to provide some background information:
Briefly describe the company: What kind of company is it? What
services does the company provide? How old is the company? Number
of employees? Location? objectives of the company ETC
-Of course you need to include/mention the names of the presenter
before proceeding with the presentation. It is also good to mention the
job title/position of the presenters/researchers
N. Quarrie
Preparing a business presentation
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(prezi.com, 2016):
 Objectives: You must list the objectives of the
research that you conducted. This is very important
as the content of most of the presentation will be
based on these objectives.
 Limitation: During the conduct of any given research
there may be some kind of challenge that the
researcher may have faced while collecting data,
preparing to conduct the research etc. You should
use this section to mention those limitations
N. Quarrie
Preparing a business presentation
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Summary of data:
Use descriptive statistics to show the result of the research:
 This section should be used to present graphs/charts that
capture the main objectives of your research. Maybe about
five (5) main questions/graphs, depending on the nature of
the presentation.
 You must describe the graphs in this section. For example,
10% of the respondents said that they would purchase this
new product, 20% said may purchase this product and so on
and so fourth.
 You do not talk about implications of the results reflected on
the graphs here.
N. Quarrie
Preparing a business presentation
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 Implications of results found: For this section you
discuss what the results shown on each graph is
implying.
 NB: Please review previous lectures that contains
information about how to interpret the graphs.
N. Quarrie
Preparing a business presentation
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 Conclusion: Based on the results found you will need to
draw conclusions based on the graphs.
 Lets say, for example, one of the graphs represented
information that was based on a question from your
questionnaire regarding the types of flavors of bag juice
to be sold by a company: orange, pineapple and mango
 Lets say that 20% said they would buy mango flavor, 45%
said pineapple and 35% said orange. From this we could
conclude that most persons prefer pineapple and that
mango is the least preferred flavor. It could also be
concluded that quite a number of persons also like the
pineapple flavour.
N. Quarrie
How to produce a formal business report
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 After completing a business related research you
may need to do a formal business report. This is
different from the business presentation, even
though, it will include details similar to that which
was included in the business presentation.
 The format and structure of a business presentation
varies. A suggested format/sections that should be
included is highlighted on the slide that follows.
N. Quarrie
Points to note
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During the presentation of the business presentation
be sure to
 communicate the strategy well
 be confident
 Make use of visual aid
 Use stimulation exercise or scenarios
N.Quarrie
How to produce a formal business report?
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Sections of a formal business report:
a covering letter or memorandum
• a title page
• an executive summary
• a table of contents
• an introduction
• findings
•discussion
• recommendations • conclusions
• a list of references
• appendices
Please click on the following link for information regarding how to write a
formal business report: Victoria.ac.nz, (2013). How to write a report.
[online] Available at:
http://www.victoria.ac.nz/vbs/teaching/publications/VBS-report-writingguide-2013-July.pdf. [Accessed 8 Feb. 2016].
N. Quarrie
Review Questions
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1. Explain the difference between the summary of
data section and the implications section of a
formal business presentation.
2. Is there a difference between a formal business
presentation and a formal business report?
3. What should be included in the conclusion
section of the formal business presentation
N. Quarrie
References/Additional Reading List
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 Victoria.ac.nz, (2013). How to write a report. [online]
Available at:
http://www.victoria.ac.nz/vbs/teaching/publication
s/VBS-report-writing-guide-2013-July.pdf.
[Accessed 8 Feb. 2016].
 prezi.com, (2016). Preparing Formal Business
Reports. [online] Available at:
https://prezi.com/d74ct8nytgi6/preparing-formalbusiness-reports/ [Accessed 3 Mar. 2016].
N. Quarrie